Why did God kill children?

by brotherdan 185 Replies latest watchtower bible

SweetBabyCheezits
At least I am staying on topic ....Why did God kill children?
Fair enough. Here's why *I think* God killed children:
1. The bible is a book written by man. It combines some real people, places, and times with a bunch of myths and legends.
2. Some ridiculous stories that involved children being killed were total fabrications or exaggerations to help CONTROL the people with fear. (Elisha, she-bears)
3. Other times, children may have died from some disease but superstitious people attributed things they didn't understand... to God.
I'm sure there are additional points that could be made here but I'll leave it at that for now as it's 1:20AM and I've gotta get some sleeps.
Rabbit

http://www.evilbible.com/
Baby Bashing
"Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock." Psalms 137:9 NAB
This is one of the 'holy scriptures' that I could not help, but, question: How? Why...? I "went to an elder" with this problem, he read it, stared, read it and stared again...thought vewwy, vewwy, cawfooly, then s-s-tammered: Bro. Rabbit ! You are on some VERY thin ice, don't you know demonz kin heer yu speekin;!? They cannot heer you thinkin', but, when ya' talk out loud, like you did -- doubting Jehovah -- they heered yu and are going back to tell their boss, Satan -- that a JW is wavering!!! This will get you EXTRA Demonic attention!
He told me Jesus and His Daddy were the only ones able to read my mind. That's "safe". Whew!
My question still wasn't answered: (How could Jah order His good & faithful people DO such a horrible thing? In God's name? When they picked up a tiny baby -- bashed their cute little faces against those rocks...!!! I was horrified and persisted. Like YOU I had to know the answer!
Maybe there was some "deeper understanding", since I couldn't Speak it...I asked if I could write the question down...? Nope! He said, "They can read, too!"
When I had time to think, I realized just 'what had happened'...I was completely SHUT DOWN. There WAS no answer, the elder was as disturbed, as I was about the babies. But, he truly feared his god, for me...it was a beginning to the end of my cult career.
I know this will hit you between the eyes, but, please...take each of the scriptures cited and explain (to your sense of justice) the "good" reasons the Bible God may have had for these murders.
Punishment of Innocent Children
"You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their father's wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation" (Exodus 20:4-5 NAB)
Rape of Female Captives
"Suppose you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take captives. And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change all her clothes. Then she must remain in your home for a full month, mourning for her father and mother. After that you may marry her. But if you marry her and then decide you do not like her, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her." (Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NLT)
God Admits He Did Evil Things
[The prophet Jeremiah speaking] "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to offer your prayer: If you remain quietly in this land I will build you up, and not tear you down; I will plant you, not uproot you; for I regret the evil I have done you." (Jeremiah 42:9-10 NAB)
Kill Followers of Other Religions Quran...? Read on...
"If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst." (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)
Kill Brats
"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. "Go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!" The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces." (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)
More Baby Bashing
"The people of Samaria must bear the consequences of their guilt because they rebelled against their God. They will be killed by an invading army, their little ones dashed to death against the ground, their pregnant women ripped open by swords." (Hosea 13:16 NLT)
debator

The Bible is a very warts and all account.
It basically gives us what happens without going into detail as to the why's and wherefores.
Are all the possibilities to be taken in account?
The nations around them were known to be very immoral where they suffering from the usual illness that go with immoral lifestyles on a whole nation?
Did the nations take drugs that were in common use then?
Where there genetic issues with certain tribes that would have been detrimental to interbreeding? The phillistines were known to be unusually tall.
How would the israelites have treated them? Virgins they could marry and children they could intergrate and so would be taken care of but if others survived would the people simply have let them die slow deaths and starvation due to lack of resources then?
If allowed to live would the nations have constantly attacked the israelites? The constant attacks Israel was under then anyway shows this was a fact of daily life?
What attrocities had these already commited against Israel? Could God make them look after people that had killed israelite women and children without seeking revenge?
We know the tribes around the israelites were extremely violent, aggressive, immoral, into child sacrifice (Baal worshipers used to have burning pits that they suspending their own children above then drop them to there deaths in them to appease their God baal) how could they be intergrated?
How could Jehovah minimise the influence of those nations? We know Josiah was shocked at how much the israelites had strayed from the law when he became king?
When nations showed an ability to respect Israel they were spared.
Could God force Jews to be less violent without effecting freewill?
The speculations are endless but just putting a negative spin as the majority are doing on this thread is simply unrealistic and armchair moralising. Do we do better when we are far removed from the attrocities? When the governments you voted in do attrocities to other nations away from your eyes?
We have had Jesus's message of peace for 2000 years and yet we still think war and death are the answer! You may argue but we are imperfect humans but I say back that that is all God had to deal with. He had imperfect cloth he simply couldn't make peaceful he even sent his son with a message of peace and we killed him.
I think the Hebrew laws for the Jews covered a particularily violent and aggressive time period and the people needed preparing to be able to accept a more peaceful message from the messiah and even then they still killed him because of their violent tendencies.
caliber

I think it is very dangerous to try to piece together things that happened that many centuries ago.
I only mentioned a quoted from a source that seems to make sense to me ... I don't pretend to know all the answers.
Even in our century things have changed... what of how black people were treated even up to the 60's or homosexual
rights ? Things have to be understood in relation to the times... has God changed or is it more likely human progression ?
Should the allied forces of WW 2 , have made sure all the innocent women and children were safely out of Berlin and other German cities
before they fire bombed it... ? It was so hot people were at the windows burnt stiff , hanging out the window for air !! Is justice for all ever found in war ?
It's my understanding the early part of the Bible is precedent setting.. the absolute application of punishment for error vs the law of love in the new Testament.
Regardless, who of us can see the bigger picture, the long term outcome as God sees it ?
I think Im trying to make the same point here as the quote below ..
I think the Hebrew laws for the Jews covered a particularly violent and aggressive time period and the people needed preparing to be able to accept a more peaceful message from the messiah and even then they still killed him because of their violent tendencies.
these two (law and grace) are set forth as complete opposites, and (2) the text also makes it clear that the only way the believer is going to experience true sanctification (victory over sin plus the production of positive righteousness) is by grace (the work of God in Christ) and never by law.
debator

Hi Caliber
Yes I agree with your point too. I also think Jehovah was limited by "freewill" knowing he could only do so much without unduly effecting this. We have to be able to choose for ourselves to turn to God and his message of peace and love but also face the consequences of our choices if we don't.
Black Sheep

... also face the consequences of our choices if we don't.
Yeah, right.
Getting killed as babies is a consequence of their choices??
streets76

That is why the Bible is a book of faith. You are allowed to take it or leave it.
<Sigh>
Things have to be understood in relation to the times... has God changed or is it more likely human progression ?
No, the imaginary OT god has not changed. But, thankfully, freethinking is a human progression -- a very, very sloooooooow human progression.
snowbird

A picture of children in slavery in the USA.
You can find more by googling "John, a slave child."
My point?
Which is more heinous or more humane, physically killing children outright or killing them mentally, morally, emotionally, and, yes, sometimes physically over a period of time?
Do you think any Israelite family would have loved and nurtured the children of their enemies? In my opinion, God, in His infinite wisdom, did those children a favor by sparing them future suffering.
Who are we to sit in judgment of God Almighty when, on a daily basis, we allow children and adults to suffer and die needlessly? If we have the power to put a person on the moon, surely we can care for those who need it most!
Syl
PSacramento

The ancients were faced with this issue often, Job himself asked God WHY? and of course, the reply he got was not what he or the ancients wanted to hear.
We can't take an isolated act or event and decide to "judge" any by it and we can't do that with God, BUT at the sametime, we must hold the giver of morals to a much higher accountability than those of us that follow those morals and if we, as lowly humans, see the wrong in killing children, then how can God do that?
It is a valid question and one the deserves an answer and for some, they have come to a place where the answers THEY have are acceptable to THEM.
For others, not so much.
But where does this leave God?
IF we take the bible as literal then Yes, God has killed and allowed to be killed, many people: Flood, wars, plagues and so forth.
So we must either take that God had a reason for these things or that God can and does do with his creation whatever the heck he wants to ( Basically God's answer to Job according to the writer of that story).
But if that is the case, how do we reconcile THAT God with the God of Christian Love ?
If God is Light and in God there is no darkeness (and make no msitake, killing when killing cn be avoided is darkeness), if God is life ( then there can be no death in God), If God is Love, then those acts are NOT consistent with God's nature AS REVEALED by Jesus Christ.
So, either God has "grown up" since those OT times, or God has changed, or God is a different person, or God is bipolar ( my apologies to those that are I am jsut trying to make a point) or what was written did NOT give an accurate account of who and what God truly is.
For those that don't believe in God the answer is less complex: it's all BS written by man to control man and justify their horrid atrocities ( much like we still do now).
But for those that have come to KNOW God, well, for those we have to come to terms with what is written and decided what IS God.
THE GLADIATOR

PSacramento
I admire your tireless efforts to explain and come to terms with what can seem inexplicable.
For what its worth, your generosity, persistence and patience with me, has rekindled my interest in re-examining my spiritual journey.

Why did God kill children?

Share this